Belizeans, like many people the world over, are going about their business as usual on this Monday morning, but the world is not the same as it was a few days ago. Things were not good for many; in fact, surviving another day was a challenge for the Palestinian people, who daily continue to be killed (or die from hunger or disease) at a rate of near a hundred a day by the Israeli army in the occupied territory called Gaza. But for most of us in other parts of the world, things were not that bad, as we faced the usual challenges of high prices, health issues, and a concern about crime and the instability among a portion of our young men who are caught up in the dangerous business of illegal drugs and gangs. However, the world has another big concern today; and, while ignorance may be bliss for many, the reality for those who understand what is going on in the Middle East and have heard the reports of happenings over the weekend, is that the world is a far more dangerous place since Saturday night, June 21. After U.S. president Donald Trump gave the order for the American military to invade the national airspace of the sovereign nation of Iran and bomb three of its nuclear facilities, which were already under U.N.-monitored surveillance and inspection by the international body, the “Doomsday clock” has moved substantially forward as tensions rise in the Middle East.
Our local problems of salaries and allowances, and the leadership squabble inside the Opposition party, and our racial/hair discrimination issues, and our sugar and screwworm crises, corruption in government, etc. are all of great concern, but a further escalation of what has been ignited in the Middle East can easily and quickly translate to much greater hard times for all, especially the poor and marginalized citizens in Belize and across the globe, as oil prices could leap to unprecedented heights due to military action in the vital shipping lanes of the Strait of Hormuz and the Suez Canal.
Who are the criminals? Who is to blame? And how will the current crisis be defused before it gets much worse? All we can do is wait and pray. But as things continue to evolve and develop in the days ahead, Belizeans will be better able to cope as a nation, if we all get a better understanding of the forces at play, and how we can maneuver as a people with enlightened leadership, to come through whatever crisis the world has in store, with as minimal damage or suffering as we can manage. Knowledge is power; and it is our duty to help enlighten those who are confounded by this troubling situation. Malcolm X once said that if we are brainwashed into ignorance, we might find ourselves hating our true friends, and loving our enemies. It can be confusing sometimes, especially when those we consider our longtime friends declare other nations to be “evil” and other unflattering terms, as has been said of the nation of Venezuela, which has been a proven friend to Belize and all of the Caribbean through the Petro Caribe program that helped all of us economically. Some nations have been branded as “terrorists”, while the mercenaries who are fighting to overthrow elected governments in some African countries are referred to by some Western media as “freedom fighters”. It is bewildering sometimes, leading Bob Marley to observe that, “soon we’ll find out who is, the real revolutionary,” because, depending on which media source we follow, the “news” can lean one way or the other, when two forces are engaged in conflict. However, our “lying eyes” can’t seem to accept the plea from sources supporting the Israeli offensive in the Gaza, that they are all about “self-defense”, when other media are showing all the pictures of wanton destruction and massacre being unleashed on the Palestinian people, so that even the United Nations has called out for an end to the genocide, and the Israeli leader has been declared a “war criminal” by the International Criminal Court.
The dilemma for us in Belize is that we are by location and culture as much pro-USA as are the many Belizean citizens currently residing there with Green Cards and US citizenship, who faithfully send remittances to assist their relatives and friends back home in the Jewel. We once even had a fledgling political party that called itself “Belize-USA”, campaigning, it would seem, for us to become another state of the U.S. But even the great American people, a majority of them for sure, are against some of the military actions of their government in the Middle East. Protests and demonstrations abounded across all states of the U.S. in which Americans railed against their tax dollars being spent on Israel’s genocidal massacre of innocent Palestinian people, a majority being women and children, in Gaza. So, what the U.S. government does, and what the U.S. people believe in, can sometimes vary widely.
When Donald Trump and the U.S. military invaded Iranian airspace and bombed their nuclear facilities, the declared purpose was to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear bomb, which it could then use on arch-enemy Israel, an “iron clad” ally of the U.S. But there are currently a number of nations, including Israel, with nuclear weapons, and none so far has dared to use it. Why? The term used is “MAD” – mutually assured destruction. According to livescience.com, “Mutual assured destruction refers to the concept that two superpowers are capable of annihilating each other with nuclear weapons, regardless of whether they are attacked first.” According to time.com, “Iran has insisted that its nuclear program is peaceful, aimed at energy production and medical research. It is also a party to the UN’s Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which obliges members not to develop nuclear weapons. But international watchdogs have warned about the country’s enrichment of uranium to levels far beyond civilian use and its concealment of key facilities.” The suggestion is that possibly Iran is secretly attempting to develop a nuclear weapon.
There are many questions out there, and many sources with their own agendas. Looking on as we pray for peace, Belizeans, and especially our leaders, can only try to “pick sense from nonsense”. There would indeed be a great danger to all if the Iranian leaders are “mad”. Have they been behaving in such a way? If any nation’s leaders that have nuclear weapons behave like they are “mad”, then the whole world is in danger. Some sources suggest that the U.S. military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities is more about economic interests than anything else, Iran being one of the world’s biggest oil producers, and Iran also being a BRICS country.
The word “hegemony” keeps coming up in international discourse. The website foreignaffairs.com, in an article titled, “How Hegemony Ends: The Unraveling of American Power,” asks the questions: “Will core allies decouple from the U.S. hegemonic system? How long, and to what extent, can the United States maintain financial and monetary dominance?” Which would also beg the question, does the havoc apparently being instigated by Israel and the U.S. in the Middle East have anything to do with maintaining US hegemony?
We little minnows in Belize can just look on and pray for the best outcome, as the big giants rumble. Pray for peace, Belize!